This invention relates a method for destroying infectious materials of a disposable type, especially medical and/or dental articles.
Generally, all waste materials or products involve risks of varying types and magnitude from the viewpoint of general hygiene, professional hygiene and environmental hygiene. In this respect, however, waste products from medical and dental establishments present particularly serious problems because of the risk of spreading infection. Consequently, governmental health and sanitation regulations normally set forth procedural requirements for treatment, handling and disposal of such kinds of waste products.
Generally, such waste products include contaminated objects or paraphernalia, such as disposable hypodermic syringes sharp and pointed waste products; for example, scalpels, hypodermic needles, suturing needles, cannulae, root canal files, glass splinters and the like, as well as biological material, such as bacteriological substrate with growth from the teeth and the oral cavity.
In the medical and dental fields, the disposition of risk waste products such as tampons, swabs, and disposable instruments is a particularly recurring problem. This is especially true when such materials have been utilized in treating patients with hepatitis or other infectious diseases. Furthermore, in regard to hypodermic needles and syringes, particularly, there are explicit hospital and clinic regulations for their destruction since such items are especially sought after by drug addicts. According to present regulations, therefore disposable hypodermic needles and syringes which have been used are destroyed either by machine or manually, the needle being cut to pieces with a pair of tongs or the like. This procedure is, however, complicated and time consuming and also involves an infection risk to the medical personnel who might receive skin scratches while handling these articles. Moreover, even when special machinery is employed to destroy such articles, there are hygienic inconveniences and risks since the apparatus must be cleaned from time to time and may contain highly infectious material after treatment of seriously infected patients. There is a need, therefore, for a method for disposing of such infectious waste products. The present invention fulfills this need.